This color-coded map in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies from 1880 through 2014. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower then normal termperatures are shown in blue. The final frame represents the global temperatures 5-year averaged from 2010 through 2014.

NASA Finds 2014 Was Warmest Year in Modern Record

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists.

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

For understanding climate change, the long-term trend of rising temperatures across the planet is more important than any year’s individual ranking. These rankings can be sensitive to analysis methods and sampling. While 2014 ranks as the warmest year in NASA’s global temperature record, it is statistically close to the values from 2010 and 2005, the next warmest years.

Since 1880, the average surface temperature of Earth has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

Regional differences in temperature in any year are more strongly affected by weather dynamics than the global mean. For example, in the U.S. in 2014, parts of the Midwest and East Coast were anomalously cool, while Alaska and three western U.S. states – California, Arizona and Nevada – recorded their warmest years on record, according to NOAA, which assesses official U.S. temperature records.

This frame sequence of color-coded Global temperatures in robinson projection display a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies from 1880 through 2014. Each image represents a unique 5 year time period in the sequence. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower then normal termperatures are shown in blue.